Improve your ear with these. 834p

Hello Pedrillo,
Have no experience with this particular Stage. I bet it is very nice.

Could you please describe what available gain, and loading settings are on this Unit? I'm curious to know, as I'm sure others are as well. I see 70db mentioned in one catalog, but nothing more?

No Doubt one could, as you say, do high-grade re-wire, change-out various Caps, perhaps even something like Bybee Purifiers, etc. Cone Footers may help, and as you have found as well, the change-out of Tubes will certainly influence the sound of the Unit, just like others have found with thier Tube Phono Stages. Even Tube Rolling with the Bellari has prooved beneficial in virtually all instances.

Sound will be altered, and whether a change for the better, or worse I reckon will be subjective, due perhaps to personal tastes, and systems.

Something like the new Herbies Tube Dampers may be an improvement you'll like, tough to say? Mark

Steve Huntley at Great Northern Sound thinks the 834p benefits from some mods (which he does). I'm thinking about sending mine there. I've found his Wadia and ARC mods to be pretty impressive. I don't know what he does, but I know he admires the simplicity of the design, and am of the impression that he doesn't try to change it.

I've heard that Thorsten's EAR 834P Modification Guide is one of the best.

A friend and I did the 834p mods ourselves just a couple weeks ago. We basically replaced all the caps with audiophile versions, replaced the jacks with Cardas versions, and put nice tubes in it. The difference was signficant in the treble - smoother and less grain - and better soundstaging in general. I think next up we may enclose the transformer in a copper shield.

Arthur

Arthur,
Are you referring to the power supply transformer?
I would think separating the power supply from the ear chassis and running an umbilical chord from the power supply chassis would yield better results.
If you are referring to the mc transformer why not do the same with a better transformer in a separate chassis?
Can you tell us which caps you used and tubes as well?
Peter

Pedrillo. I have hard wired the driver stage of my Audionote 6550 SEP amp using tara labs solid core silver wiring. There was a definite and noticeable improvement, but I had to be very cautious as not to introduce noise. Sloppy wiring will act as aerials, which pick up stray airborne RFI and EM noise.

If you do attempt this I would recommend you start by identifying the signal path and restrict this mod to the signal path.

Good luck
Paul